


Bunnymund's Tale

by DeskGirl



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, Historical, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Not Canon Compliant, Origin Story, Original Character(s), Paralysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 08:16:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14849070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeskGirl/pseuds/DeskGirl
Summary: Toothiana had said they were all human once. So what was Bunnymund's story?Aster “Bunny” Mund was one of Australia’s top long distance and sprint runners when the Commonwealth was formed. Pride of the country, and proud of it. His legs were his life, which made what happened in the spring of 1911 especially cruel.(An alternate origin story for E. Aster Bunnymund, written based on the movie)





	Bunnymund's Tale

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't aware of the book series when I began writing this. In the movie, Toothiana mentioned all of the guardians were human once, and my mind ran wild with ideas. So I wrote an origin story in a sort of children's book style about a young man from a hundred years ago who learned the value of hope.

     Aster “Bunny” Mund was one of Australia’s top long distance and sprint runners when the Commonwealth was formed. Pride of the country, and proud of it. His legs were his life, which made what happened in the spring of 1911 especially cruel.

     It was all over the newspapers: a horrible accident between a new Model T on the road and a startled horse and buggy. Several people were severely injured, including Australia’s up and coming Olympic hopeful.

***

     “Mund, Aster?” The doctor read the name on the clipboard in his hand as he entered the hospital room. It was a large hall with beds. Several had curtains around them, for sleeping or ill patients. Nurses bustled around, changing bed pans.

     “Over here, Doc.” A lean young man with a colorful bruise decorating the whole side of his face waved. “Got news for me?”

     “How do you feel?” the doctor asked, avoiding the question.

     “Rooted,” the man said flatly. “That horse had a hell of a kick. Or was it the wagon that caught me? It was all pretty blurry.”

     “Mr. Mund—”

     “Aster. Or Bunny. Mund makes me sound old.”

     “Mr. Aster, you’re paralyzed.”

     “What? Rubbish! I can move fine.” He waved his hands in front of the doctor.

     “But can you move your legs?”

     Aster ground his teeth. “I can move them fine. Spine’s just bruised is all. That’s what the nurse said. Gotta let it heal, and I’ll have those toes wiggling in no time.”

     “No time, indeed. Mr. Aster, you’d need a miracle to walk again. I’m sorry, but it isn’t happening, and having a blue with me won’t change that.”

     The doctor had more to say. Something about treatment and therapy. Aster wasn’t listening. The doctor walked away while Aster lay there, staring off into the distance as the news sunk in. He didn’t realize his hands were shaking until a nurse came over and offered to get him another blanket.

     He would never run—never _walk_ —again.

     After that, Aster Mund sunk into a depression, with short bouts of furious shouting and anger. The nurses never knew when to expect it. He would offer them barely a word for days while they tended him, then all of a sudden he would start cursing, and throwing things from his night stand. He wouldn’t let family come visit him, and he chased off every reporter. He faded from the public’s short memory, no longer of any importance to a world that only cared about the exceptional.

     There was only one person in the hospital as bad as him: Johnny Lang. Ten years old, and loud as an air raid siren, he threw a fit every time the nurses tried to do tests or give him his medicine.

     One day was particularly bad.

     “I won’t eat it! I won’t! No!” Johnny threw his tray to the ground, bowl shattering on the floor. He continued to scream as the nurse cleaned up. She tried to offer him something else. “No no no! Stay away from me!”

     “Oh bite yer bum!” Aster shouted back from across the hall. “No one wants to hear you whine!”

     Johnny screwed up his face and shouted back. “No one wants to hear you whine either! You do it all the time! You’re a big baby!”

     “Yeah, well so are you!”

     They both fell silent, sulking in their respective beds. Whenever Aster glanced over, he caught Johnny looking at him, but the kid quickly turned his head away, pointedly ignoring him.

     Aster called the doctor over later in the day while he was doing his rounds. “What is up with that little devil?” He pointed over to Johnny, who was quietly arguing with a child in the bed next to him.

     “John Lang? We’ve been running the tests to find out. Seems he has a tumor; he’s going to need his kidney removed. In a couple days, we’ll get a proper surgeon from Canberra to do it.”

     “Does the ankle biter know?”

     “He’s been afraid of getting cut on ever since he came in. He found out this morning. He won’t let the nurses do anything now. Won’t even eat.”

     “Yeah? I noticed.” Aster looked over, and managed to catch Johnny’s gaze. The little boy stuck his tongue out, and turned away again. Aster was left to stare at the side of the kid’s head for a minute before speaking up.

     The doctor had almost turned away by then, but stopped when he heard Aster’s request. “I’m sorry, what?”

     “I said make him his lunch, and bring me some goobie eggs and food color. I’ll make the little dingo eat.”

     Painting eggs was something he’d learned from his aunt. She was an artist by trade, selling things out of her own little shop. Some people might look down on a working woman, but not the Mund family. Her most beautiful works were painted eggs. She would knock tiny holes into each end, then blow the yolk and egg white out. After that was done, she would spend hours painting intricate patterns onto them. She had taught Aster when he was young because he was always so impatient. He wanted things fast, and it made him reckless. His aunt’s solution was egg painting. He had to go slow or he’d smear the paint. He had to be gentle or he’d crack the shells. It was borderline torture for a small boy, but if there was one thing he disliked more than wasting time, it was failing.

     This egg was hard-boiled, cool in Aster’s hand from the ice bath it had gotten. With only two colors to paint with, it only took him about ten minutes to finish. It wasn’t his best work, but hopefully it would be enough. He called for a nurse, and asked her to bring around a wheelchair. She tried to help him into it, but Aster shooed her away, and insisted on wheeling himself over as well, egg cradled in his lap.

     Johnny was trying to refuse a new tray of food. The nurse looked at Aster, completely flustered.

     “Hey, Joey.”

     “It’s Johnny.” The boy seemed a bit surprised that Aster had come over, but he didn’t let it keep him from arguing.

     “Nah, you’re a joey. Small enough I bet I could stuff you in my pocket.”

     “I am not small! Why are you over here?”

     “You gotta eat.”

     “No, I don’t.”

     “You do if you want this.” Aster brandished the egg in his hand.

     Johnny squinted. “What is it?”

     “It’s a goobie egg. Painted it myself.” He held it closer for Johnny to see. “You know the best part about my special Aster eggs?”

     “What?”

     “You gotta break em.”

     Johnny looked particularly interested by that. “I gotta break it?”

     “Well yeah, how else are you supposed to eat it? You gotta crack it open, and peel the shell off. You eat some lunch, and I’ll let you wreck it. And I’ll paint you a new one tomorrow. But only if you keep eating.”

     “I guess that’s kinda neat…” Johnny finally let the nurse set the tray in front of him, and started eating his soup.

     Aster set the egg on the tray, and snagged one of the crackers on the plate.

     “Hey, that’s mine!”

     “You snooze, you lose.”

     Aster lay in bed wide awake that night. It was the calmest he’d ever felt. Nothing had changed, except the dye on his fingers, but he felt almost happy for the first time in a while.

     It was a nice, full moon that night. Having no other company awake at the moment, Aster settled for the moon’s company. “I don’t really understand,” he told the Man in the Moon. “I can’t walk. I’ll never be able to walk. And, well, it hurts. Why care about anything when I can’t run anymore? I can’t even stand on my own two feet. But… But tonight it doesn’t hurt as much. I got to help that kid today, and it felt good. I felt useful again. It… it gave me hope.”

     Aster sighed, and relaxed on the bed again. “I’m talking to the bloody moon. Look at me.” He pulled the pillow over his face, and let himself fall asleep.

     What Aster didn’t know was the Man in the Moon had heard him just fine. And he was looking at him. He was looking at a young man who needed hope, and found it in children when he thought he’d lost it all. He saw a guardian. So that night while Aster slept, the Man in the Moon gave him a second chance.

     Aster would awake before anyone else in the hospital, groggy and confused at first, then startled. He would leap out of bed in a panic before realizing he was standing. Standing on his feet without any trouble at all. And then he would understand everything, as if it had been whispered in his ear while he slept. With a couple thumps of his foot, E. Aster Bunnymund was gone.

     He would return a few nights later, just long enough to make sure Johnny Lang’s surgery had been a success, and leave him one last painted egg, for giving him hope.


End file.
